1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for delivering a broad range of information including letters or characters, symbols, images, voice and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systems have been developed for members of an information-providing network to use portable information equipment to receive information. As an example of this kind of services, a member of the service accesses a server using the portable information equipment via a communication line, and performs a procedure for obtaining selected information. Then, the server searches a database for information in accordance with the request of the service member, and sends the information to the portable information instrument via the line, with the result that the information displayed on a display portion of the portable information equipment can be obtained.
For example, a service member wanting to know what time a movie X starts connects to the server from the portable information equipment through a communication line, and inputs the signal (URL, search key words, etc.) used to obtain the selected information, and transmits the signal to the server. The server searches the database based on the signal, and sends the results to the portable information equipment. Thus, the service member was able to obtain letter or character information and information in the form of a still image as large as could be displayed on the display portion of the portable information equipment, for example, “movie title: XX, movie theater: YY, show time: ZZ”.
However, according to the conventional method for displaying information on a display portion of a portable information equipment, the information could not be more than what could be displayed on a small display screen of the portable information equipment. Therefore, there was a limit to the amount of data (information) that the service member could obtain. For example, the service member was not able to obtain information by displaying a moving image on a display portion of a large such as a television.
Further, in the case when the display portion of the portable information equipment was used to try to obtain information with a large amount of data, there were problems in that a long duration of time was required to complete the display, the display power was insufficient, and information storage unit included in the portable information equipment had insufficient capacity so that all of the information could not be received.